Bare Metal Restore of B&R Physical Hardware only

[dc-fan]

Hello,

i am quite new with Veeam and have some questions:

There is:
Physical Server with Win2016 (( no VMS) , just a simple singular Server with AD, DC, DNS,DHCP , SQL etc.
I installed the new Community Edition of B&R, everythings seems to work like i need it ,but i thought about, if for single physical Server the Veem Agent Free is not the better option?
I created some Backup Jobs ( Backup is only on on USB external Drives) in B&R and it works so far

My question is:
I created the Recovery Media.iso out of B&R.
Could i do the bare metal recovery of the Server WHERE THE B&R IS INSTALLED ( its only 1 Server for everything as i mentioned) with that Recovery Media and my external USB Drives like with the Veeam Agent or what would happen if my Server with B&R installed would die?
I saw the Option of Backup the B&R Config to external Drives in the Settings of B&R, but do i really need it for Bare Metal Recovery Case?


I read everywhere that for this Scenario the Veeam Agent free is better Option, but Veeam says that Community Edition is the legitimate follo-up Product of the free with more Options.


Whats is your opinion about it ?
It would be great if somebody of the Veeam Professionals would anwser that , think some others Customers wanna know this too.

[HannesK]

Hello,
you don't need B&R community edition - Veeam Agent For Windows free edition with external drive should be fine for you . The only advantage I would see in your case is, that you could use the explorers for AD and SQL.

Please don't install B&R on your existing server

Details about bare metal recovery with free edition

Best regards,
Hannes

[dc-fan]

Thank you for your Feedback.
i Installed B&R Community editionfor testing on another Server with the same Settings.

I configured Backup Repositories ( external USBV DSrives) and set Backup Jobs ( Agent managed by Server). So far so good.
Then i created Recovery Media iso and burned a Disk..i booted from it and tried to restore single Files from the Backup, that i configured in B&R.
It seemed to work perfect.


My Question is now :
Is it possible to make a BARE METAL RESTORE from the Server where V&R is installed ( Backup up with the Agent 3.01, BUT managed by B&R)?
When i would do full Restore from the Recovery Media, there will be a Question about the B&R Repo ( of course it wont find one in that Case, because the only one is offline) or is it possible to make Full Restore like with the Free Agent too without any Problems?

Thank you

[HannesK]

Hello,
yes you can do BMR of your backup server in general. It's a common setup. Most customers do it with a standalone (free or paid) agent, but also your way works.

When you boot with the recovery media, it will ask you for backup files. Just point "somehow" directly to them. The BMR UI does not care what the backup job setting was. In fact it does not even know that.

As always: test and document restore procedures

Best regards,
Hannes